The Third Place of Dee Martin

Kathy Sierra

One of my favorite bloggers canceled a speaking engagement and is unable to leave her home today because of death threats and sick comments on her blog and some posts on some other blogs that also referred to her.

She is not in education and yet she has taught me a lot. I wish I had some sage advice to offer her but I would be terrified myself.

As I read her post describing what is going on I couldn’t help but think it could happen to anyone. While she has the added public exposure of speaking to large groups (including SXSW) it just underscores that we really have no idea of who is out there reading what we write. I don’t think we should stop writing, and blogging is not responsible for a stalker. This kind of thing could happen to anyone at any time. We do need to be aware of our surroundings online though, just as we should be mindful of our surroundings in any public area.
We talk about teaching our students how to post online with a positive image and there is so much controversy about what should be blocked and how we should protect our students, but there really isn’t any such thing as truly protecting them. We can take measures to the best of our ability, to make sure that their educational experience online and off, is safe – but what it comes down to is no one is ever safe in this world. We just have to prepare them as best we can and hope it’s enough.

My prayers are with Kathy tonight as they are every night with the kids in our community. Sometimes when you have done everything else you know to do, that’s all that’s left but it’s no small thing. So stay safe Kathy and I hope the person is caught soon.